McCaffery: Califorina love

CHERRY HILL, N.J. — The Phillies won the World Series in 2008 when Cole Hamels was the MVP, Chase Utley was close and Jimmy Rollins had already begun a Hall of Fame candidacy. All were Californians, and all might someday be Californians again. Nobody asked them for passports, either, when they paraded through South Philly days later, swiping away confetti.

Mike Trout watched that postseason march, driving from Millville, N.J., as often as he could, pumping his fist with every one of Brad Lidge’s saves, 41 of them in the regular season, seven more in the playoffs, not one of the opportunities butchered. Lidge was from California, too. So maybe that parade should have been around the La Brea Tar Pits, not City Hall, not that there could be much difference.

It’s how baseball works, the idea being for everything to come full circle. And it’s why there is such a good chance that next October, so many Los Angeles Angels fans could watch Trout help manager Mike Scioscia win the fifth annual re-enactment of that 2008 series. Five years already? That’s how long it took Trout to turn from a 16-year-old in a replica Phillies cap to a 21-year-old baseball star, the Rookie of the Year in the American League and just a few ballots shy of being the MVP.

Trout is from South Jersey, Scioscia from Springfield, and the two are buffered by a lineup so deep that fans in Anaheim soon should be jamming area highways, honking their horns. They will know the drill.

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“We have high hopes and high expectations and we’re looking forward to it,” Trout was saying the other night before the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association Dinner at the Crowne Plaza. “We want to get off to a hot start. We came out a little slow last year and put ourselves in a hole. We want to work hard in spring training to get where we want to be.”

Trout was honored by the writers as their Professional Athlete of the year after hitting .326, stealing 49 bases and bashing 30 home runs in his first complete big-league season after being the 25th pick in the 2009 draft out of Millville High. The Phillies would have selected 27th, but lost that pick to Seattle as compensation for signing Raul Ibanez. That meant Trout spent April and May of that season yodeling “Rauuuuuuulll” every time Ibanez flipped one over a shallow Citizens Bank Park fence.

“Growing up as a Phillies fan and watching when they won the World Series and stuff, it was pretty neat,” Trout said. “To come back here and be recognized, it is awesome. Me and my buddies came up there for those games, actually. We tailgated a couple times. Just being up here in that atmosphere, and with the way the fans are, just being a part of it was unbelievable.”

Equally tough to grip is that it is over already. Just before the PSWA dinner, there was Hamels being asked how it felt to be considered an underdog. Seconds later, and just 60 feet, six inches away, Trout was being asked to consider the potential of an Angels lineup. The Angels acquired Josh Hamilton, the Phillies Ben Revere.

“To add Josh Hamilton and now to have Albert, Hamilton and Trumbo,” Trout said, “is exciting.”

Trumbo is Mark Trumbo. Albert is Albert Pujols, and he shouldn’t require a last name. Hamilton. Trout, too. And didn’t the Phillies once seem that deep? And would they have been that deep had somehow they had figured out how to employ just one more former tailgating ticket-buyer?

“It would have been pretty neat,” Trout said. “But I didn’t know anything about the Angels at first. Then when I got a chance to really understand who they are and how they bring their players up, it is really a good organization.”

Trout met Charlie Manuel Monday, and Hamels, and Tommy Greene, who was there to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 1993 National Leauge pennant. And Larry Bowa, who won the Living Legend award for helping the Phillies win the 1980 World Series. That’s Larry Bowa, from California. It’s how it works.